Below-the-belt attacks are nothing unusual in Westminster, but rarely do they come as literal as this: Penny Mordaunt has suggested that Sir Keir Starmer has “zero balls”, comparing him with Ken from this summer’s blockbuster movie Barbie.
In a week when Starmer sought to brand Rishi Sunak as “Inaction Man”, the Commons leader reached for an equally useless children’s figure in a spirited counterattack.
Goaded by Lucy Powell, the shadow Commons leader, Mordaunt said she was “happy to focus” on Starmer’s “hilarious gag”.
She said that the “Inaction Man” soubriquet would not “survive contact with the prime minister’s work-rate” but said she would “rise to the bait and return the serve, because I think the Labour leader is ‘Beach Ken’.
“Beach Ken
